Clothes wringer



Jan, 1, 1924 3,479,495

H. H. BRADFORD CLOTHES WRINGER Filed Feb. 16. 1922 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FEE-1 I INVE/V 70/? gifffm W Jan. 1, 1924 3,479,495

H. H. BRADFORD CLOTHES WRINGER Filed Feb. 16. 1922 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 WITNESSES MM M [5 Patented Jan. 1, 1924.

UNITED STATES- m E. BRADFORD, 0F PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA.

CLOTHES WBINGEB.

Application filed February 16, 1922. Serial No. 536,885.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HERBERT H. BRAD- FORD, residing at Pittsburgh in the county of Allegheny and State of l ennsylvania, a citizen of the United States, have invented or discovered certain new and useful Imrovements in Clothes Wringers, of which improvements the following is a specification.

My invention consists in a safety attachment for a power-driven wringer, for wringing clothes in process of being washed. Power driven wringers are dangerous because in operation an attendant is busy with his hands on the intake side of the wringer,

feeding in the clothes, and he may through inattention allow his hand as it follows along with the advancing clothes to be entrained and crushed in the roll pass.

In the accompanying drawings Fig. l is .a view in side elevation of a power-driven wringer into the structure of which my present invention is built; Fi II is a view in vertical section, on the p ane indicated by the line 11-11, Fig. I.

The wringer includes the cooperating rolls 1 and 2, mounted to rotate oppositely and in unison, as by the interconnecting pinions 3, 4 upon their shafts. One of the two rolls is power driven. In this case the powerdriven roll is the lower roll 2. It carries on its shaft a bevelled gear wheel 5. With the ear wheel 5 two bevelled gear wheels 6 an 7 are in mesh and, as one or the other of the gear-wheels 6 and 7 is through clutch 8 inte ated with a power-driven shaft 9, the ro is of the wringer are turned in one direction or the other.

The safety attachment consists of two pairs of guard rollers, 10, 11 and 12,13, a pair on either side of the wringer and adapted to cooperate in the manner presently to be described opposite the pass between the wringer rolls 1, 2. One roller of each pair, the lower rollers 11 and 13, are idle rollers carried in fixed supports. They extend parallel with and stand substantially on a level with and are spaced at equal and moderate intervals from the lower wringer roll 2 and on opposite sides of roll 2, and over them the clothes pass, at times in one direction, at times in the other, as they approach and leave the wringer rolls. The cooperating upper rollers of the two pairs, the rollers 10 and 12 together with opposite beams 1 1, 14 in which the rollers are idly journaled constitute a frame, pivoted at a convenient point; for example, on the axle of the upper wringer roll 1. The rollers 10 and 12 carried n and forming part of this frame extend 1n parallelism opposite their companlon rollers 11 and 13. The frame may swing on its pivoted support bringing one of the rollers (the roller 12 as seen in Fig. TI) 1nto cooperative position with its compamon roller (13) while the other roller (10) stands remote from its companion roller (11). When the frame stands in the positlon shown in Fig. 11, it is the pair of rollers 12 and 13 on the right which constltute an efi'ective guard to the wringer rolls and the pass between them. The di-. rect1on of entrainment is then that indicated by the arrow. The attendant manipulatmg the clothes asthey approach the roll pass will be guarded from the danger of aving his hand caught and crushed. The pair of rollers on the delivery side of the wringer stand apart, and offer no obstruction to free access to the wringer rolls and to the clothes as they emerge from the roll pass. When the direction of turning of the wringer is reversed and the direction of advance of the clothes is reversed, the frame is shifted, and roller 10 comes into that cooperative position relative to its companion roller 11 which in Fig. H roller 12 occupies relatively to roller 13, and at the same time roller 12 recedes to remote osition.

Guards of this nature are 01 vention consists in interconnecting mechanicall the double swinging guard described wit the reversing mechanism of the wringer, to the end that no carelessness nor inattentio'n on the part of attendants can allow it to come about, that the wringer rolls are on their intake side unguarded. To that end the rocking frame of the guard described above and the clutch 8 are interconnected, as through the rockin beam 15, to which the parts named are linked. As shown, the wringer is being driven throu h gear wheel 7, and roller 12 is guarding t 6 roll pass on the right-hand side (Fig. II); when clutch 8 is shifted and the drive is effected through gear wheel 6, the direction of turning of the wringer rolls will be reversed, and automatically roller 10 will come to position, guarding the roll pass on the left-hand side.

With attention directed to Fig. II it ma be remarked that in case an attendant stan My in-' ing Ontheright hand side of the apparatus were engaged iii manipulating the clothes as they entered the wringer, and if by accident or in consequence of inattention the attendants hands should advance with the Clothes under roller 12, the roller would thereby be raised, the frame shifted, the clutch opened, and the power driven wringer rolls would come to rest before injurycould be done.

A drip board 16 is show and as the di- Y rection of turning of the wring-er is reversed this'drip board should be reversed in its slanting position, so that it shall incline in direction opposite that of the advance of the clothes. Provision is made to that end which will be understood on considering Fig. H. Drip board 16 is linked to one or both of beams 1a, to the end that as the guard roller frame swings the drip board too will swing.

The whole coordination of parts (of clutch, guard roll frame, and drip board) may be swung'as a unit from one to the other of its two operating positions, from a single hand lever 19, which in this instance act/awe is conveniently linked to an arm 18 extending from the axle of the drip board. I

ll claim as my invention:

lln a power-driven wringer the combination, with a pair of wringer rolls and means i for rotating them alternately in opposite directions, of a safety attachment consisting of two pairs of guard rollers arranged pair by pair on opposite sides of the wringer rolls, above and below the roll-pass, the q lower of each pair of guard rollers being borne in a'iixed support and the upper in a movable support, and the movable rollers of the two pairs being integrated and niovmy hand.

HERBERT H. BRADFORD. Witnesses:

BArAnn H. Gninsrv, Anion A. 'll, 

